Mukasey In

But 40 Dem Senators voted against him. That’s a damn shame. This guy should have been passed through with flying colors, but because he wouldn’t explicitly say that a certain method of interrogation was torture, he passed by the lowest count of any AG since the 50s.

Thank you being reasonable folks. Seriously. Because if Mukasey wasn’t confirmed it would have been insane. And I still don’t know what the Dems were thinking, but the Wash Post speculates:

The 53 to 40 vote came after more than four hours of impassioned floor debate, and it reflected an effort by Democrats to register their displeasure with Bush administration policies on torture and the boundaries of presidential power.

Still, to have this many no votes is simply beyond me. We have yet to know how Mukasey will respond legally on the waterboarding issue, but from what I’ve heard so far I’m hopeful he’ll bring it back around to common sense. Especially if he thinks the method is abhorrent.

I guess we’ll see…even though 40 Dems didn’t even want to give him the chance.

What’s more? All of the Dem Senators running for prez didn’t vote, but said they would have voted against.

All five senators who are running for president — Joseph R. Biden Jr., Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Christopher J. Dodd, all Democrats, and John McCain — did not cast votes. The four Democrats had said they would not support Mr. Mukasey because of his equivocation during the confirmation hearings over whether waterboarding is torture. Mr. McCain has also denounced the interrogation method but he issued a statement last week saying he would vote to approve the nomination.

Gotta tell ya folks, that’s pretty damn disappointing to see that from the Dems.